CinemaCon, where movie studios execs show off their upcoming slates to theater owners and industry types, is in full swing in Las Vegas, and the news has been plentiful. We’ve already learned that The Batman 2 is officially happening and gotten an official title for Avatar 2: The Way of Water.
And the news keeps rolling in. We’ve also learned some new stuff about the upcoming pair of sequels to 2018’s delightful Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. Formally, those movies were going to be titled Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse Part 1 and Part 2. But change is in the air.
Across the Spider-Verse Part 2 is now Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse
The first and most important bit of Spider-Verse news is that the third film in the series is now titled Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse. This announcement didn’t come as a surprise, since Sony cut “Part 1” from Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse Part 1 only last week. These titles don’t roll off the tongue, so shortening them even a little bit to Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse and Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse feels like a good call.
In addition to the name change, Sony screened the first 15 minutes of Across the Spider-Verse and told audiences that the two films have 240 characters, six universes, and the largest crew ever for an animated film. Contrast that with the roughly 40 characters that appeared in Into the Spider-Verse, and it becomes a little easier to imagine why this gargantuan film needed to be split into two parts. Here’s hoping that each one hits just as hard as the first movie.
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse will debut in theaters on June 2, 2023, only a couple weeks before Sony’s Madame Web movie starring Dakota Johnson hits on July 7. Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse will follow on March 29, 2024.
Venom 3 is on the way with Tom Hardy
In other Sony Spider news, Collider reports that the studio confirmed that Venom 3 is in production, with Tom Hardy returning as the symbiote Spider-Man villain.
The second Venom movie, Let There Be Carnage, didn’t do as well at the box office as the first, but it still made over $500 million, so a three-quel was all but assured.
If Sony wants the third movie to reach the heights of the first, we have a simple suggestion: include Spider-Man. We’ve gone two Venom movies now without this Spider-Man villain actually fighting Spider-Man. It’s unclear whether Sony would hire a new actor to play Spider-Man or somehow work something out with Marvel where they could use Tom Holland, but I think it’s the natural next step.
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h/t IGN